Gaza has become a “mass grave” for Palestinians and those trying to help them, medical charity MSF said yesterday, as medics said the Israeli military killed at least 13 in the north of the enclave and continued to demolish homes in Rafah in the south.
Palestinian medics said an air strike killed 10 people, including the well-known writer and photographer, Fatema Hassouna, whose work has captured the struggles faced by her community in Gaza City through the war. A strike on another house further north killed three, they said.
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, residents said the Israeli military demolished more homes in the city, which has all come under Israeli control in the past days in what Israeli leaders said was an expansion of security zones in Gaza to put more pressure on Hamas to release remaining hostages.
“Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance. We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Amande Bazerolle, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ emergency co-ordinator in Gaza, said in a statement.
“With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”
Efforts by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the US to restore the defunct ceasefire in Gaza and free Israeli hostages have faltered with Israel and Hamas locked in their positions.
Hamas says it wants to move into the second phase of the January ceasefire agreement that would discuss Israel’s pullout from Gaza and ending the war. Israel says war can only end when Hamas is defeated.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Israel’s suspension of the entry of fuel, medical, and food supplies since early March had begun to obstruct the work of the few remaining working hospitals, with medical supplies drying up.
Israel said the punitive measures were designed to keep up pressure on Hamas, while the Islamist faction condemned it as “collective punishment.”
Since restarting its military offensive in March, after two months of relative calm, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities have said.
The campaign has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave.
Meanwhile, 59 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of the fighters. Israel believes 24 of them are alive.
Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defence Minister Israel Katz said yesterday.
Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid to enter Gaza to pressure Hamas, Katz said.
Since resuming their operation last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad “security zone” extending deep into Gaza and squeezing more than two million Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders, adding that “tens of per cent” of Gaza had been added to the zone.
“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”
In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized about 20pc of the enclave’s territory, taking control of the border city of Rafah and pushing inland up to the so-called “Morag corridor” that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis.
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